It is well known, for the purpose of giving change or paying out prizes, to provide coin mechanisms with a plurality of coin storage and dispensing assemblies. Typically, the mechanism will have a coin validator for validating coins of different denominations, a plurality of coin storage tubes, each for receiving accepted coins of a respective denomination, and a dispensing device, operated by a solenoid or rotary motor, beneath the lower end of each coin tube for dispensing coins from the tube. The set of dispensing devices may be contained within a single unit extending across the bottoms of all the tubes. In such a typical mechanism, for the purposes of the present specification, a coin storage tube and the dispensing device located below it are referred to as a coin storage and dispensing assembly.
The various operations of such coin mechanisms, such as the validation of coins, the setting of gates to accept or reject coins, the setting of further gates to route accepted coins to the appropriate tubes, the setting of gates to route accepted coins to a cashbox if the coin tube for that particular denomination is full, inhibiting the dispensing of coins from a particular tube when that tube is nearly empty, counting the coins dispensed from each tube so as to keep a running total of the number of coins left in the tubes, and various other operations, are controlled by control circuitry frequently including one or more microprocessors.
For the purpose of exercising that control in relation to operations involving the coin storage and dispensing assemblies, the control circuitry needs to have constantly updated information regarding various parameters of the individual assemblies. Such parameters may include whether the level of stored coins is below a predetermined lower level, whether it is above a predetermined upper level, whether a coin dispensing device is in its home, or rest, position, and whether a coin is being delivered from the dispensing device.
A coin mechanism may have, for example, five coin storage and dispensing assemblies and, for each assembly, it might be required to monitor the four parameters just mentioned above. A separate detector will be provided for monitoring each parameter in each assembly. Thus, twenty detectors in all would be required, and twenty wires would be required to transmit the detector outputs to the control circuitry.